


have a heart which skips a beat

by thatsparrow



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Injury, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 14:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19378687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: "Fuck's sake, Inej." Kaz's voice is rough enough to leave blisters. Inej can feel it chafing at her skin even as he shifts his hold under her shoulders, balancing both his weight and her own on his good leg. "What in your precious Saints' name were you thinking?"They would have killed you. She's lost too much blood from the knife-carved slash under her hip to realize her mouth isn't moving.I heard them planning it—six of them and a Fabrikator to take care of your cane. Even Jesper wouldn't have put coin on your odds.





	have a heart which skips a beat

**Author's Note:**

> catch me writing kaz/inej fic to cope until my copy of crooked kingdom arrives
> 
> title from "cold bread" by johnny flynn

"Fuck's sake, Inej." Kaz's voice is rough enough to leave blisters. Inej can feel it chafing at her skin even as he shifts his hold under her shoulders, balancing both his weight and her own on his good leg. "What in your precious Saints' name were you thinking?"

 _They would have killed you_. She's lost too much blood from the knife-carved slash under her hip to realize her mouth isn't moving. _I heard them planning it—six of them and a Fabrikator to take care of your cane. Even Jesper wouldn't have put coin on your odds._

"You're bleeding all over my suit, too," Kaz says, his voice low in her ear. Even with how gin-dizzy she's feeling from the blood loss, Inej is acutely aware of Kaz's weight against her, the warmth of his chest pressed along the seam of her side. "I'm telling Per Haskell to add the cleaning bill in with the rest of your debt." 

It's not like him to waste his breath on words, Inej thinks as Kaz takes them down another side street. Not normally, let alone when there's still a half-dozen Razorgulls behind them with knives tucked into their palms like steel-sharpened feathers. If they don't move fast—faster than Kaz can manage half-carrying the both of them—the morning will see them washed up under the struts of Fifth Harbor, ragdoll limp with their throats opened wide to feed the bone-white fish. Inej likes to think she'd take Sankt Petyr to her own neck before giving the Razorgulls any such satisfaction, but she doesn't know if her hands would have the surety or the strength when it's already asking all her focus just to stay upright. Haven't they run far enough yet? Shouldn't they nearly be back to the Slats? With her eyes half-closed, she could almost mistake the alley shadows for the awning over the door.

"No, no, no—you've got to stay _awake_. Come on, Inej," Kaz says, voice going quiet. "I can't do this without you."

She knows he's referring to their escape, that for all his strength he's already demanded too much of his mishealed knee to go much further, but she'd like to pretend he means otherwise. _I can't do this without you,_  she imagines him saying before he sends her up the pitted brick facade of a merch's house, holding the words safe against her skin when her fingers start to tremble. _I can't do this without you_. It's something she thinks she could get drunk on, were it true—the feeling of being needed by Kaz Brekker. 

And then there's a burst of needle-sharp pain at her hip where the knife went in, flaring hot like the blade is back under her skin and digging the wound wider. The shock of it is like snowmelt running down her back, throwing Inej's eyes open in time to see Kaz pulling his hand away, something wet smeared against the palm of his glove.

" _Saints_ , that hurt."

"Good. You're awake then."

"Did you just hit me?"

"You'll thank me when we make it out of this alive."

His tone doesn't waver as he says it—endlessly a bastard who's now got her blood on his hands—but, maybe, Inej can concede he has a point. She's more alert now than she's been for the last several blocks, enough so to recognize that Kaz has propped her up against a wall, to see him loosening the tie at his neck before he lowers to his knees.

"What are you—"

"Quiet," Kaz says as he wraps the fabric around her leg. "I've bought us a few moments but not more than that." _How_ , she means to ask, but then his knuckles are skimming the inside of her thigh as he knots the tie above the slash in her pants, pulling it tight enough to send another lightning-white flare of pain through her.

" _Easy_ , Kaz."

"Not if I want it to slow the bleeding." He wipes his hands on his pants, painting brown-red stains across the wool as he rises to his feet. "You have to climb, now."

Inej cranes her neck to look up at the building behind her—a peaked roof settled over two stories of rough stone. Not the highest thing she's scaled by far, nor the most difficult, but usually she doesn't have to worry about her shoes slipping from the slick of her own blood. At least Kaz picked one with a relatively gentle slope to its roof.

"Move fast and stay low once you're at the top," Kaz says. "Don't bleed out before I get back."

"Always the charmer." Even with gritted teeth, Inej can barely rest any weight on her injured leg before it feels like it's going to give out from under her. Fine, she'll climb without it, then. Inej is sure it won't be the most challenging thing she's ever done, even if she's hard-pressed at the moment to come up with anything worse. 

Kaz takes a few steps away as she turns to the building, watching her feel out the grooves before he looks to the end of the alley. But then he stops, clears his throat like that'll smooth any of the rasp from his voice.

"Stay alive, Inej." He's wasting words again, which still isn't like him. He's looking at her funny, too, when he says it—or maybe she's just not used to seeing him this unpolished, shirt unbuttoned at the neck and suit half-dyed with her blood. "No mourners, right?"

She nods, hands settling on their first grips as her foot searches out a solid hold. "No funerals."

He's gone by the time she turns her head towards the street.

 

—

 

The climb up to the roof is arduous and endless. She's ten feet from the top when she hears steps rounding the corner and presses herself flat against the stone as the Razorgulls dip into the alley, her fingers shaking with the effort of holding herself still, her injured leg hanging useless as she tries to even the balance of her weight before her arms give out. But then like a miracle— _thank you, Saints_ —she's hauling herself over the gutter and onto the shingles, stretched out flat under the stars of Ketterdam. She's too tired to do much more than lay still and keep her breathing steady, but not so tired to keep her mind from straying to dangerous places. _What if Kaz doesn't come back? What if I don't have the strength to climb down? What if this night is the last one I see?_

She doesn't know how to argue with herself, so instead Inej reaches down for the makeshift tourniquet and winds her fingers around the loose ends of Kaz's tie, steadying herself against the fabric.

_Come on, Inej. I can't do this without you._

He'll come back.


End file.
